The recently revealed discovery of more than 1,400 works of art stashed away in an apartment in Munich, Germany, could pose a number of legal challenges for individuals looking to make a claim, an art expert said in an interview.

Officials in Germany uncovered invaluable works by Picasso, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and many others in the Munich apartment of art dealer Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of the Nazi-era dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. Authorities are holding the art in an unidentified storage area near Munich.

The discovery poses thorny legal challenges, especially in the realm of restitution, according to E. Randol Schoenberg, an attorney who is also the president of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust.

The Nazi government required German museums to ban so-called "degenerate art" -- works of modern art that Adolf Hitler deemed too Jewish or contrary to German culture. Many of these works were ultimately acquired by private dealers.